Three businesses have been hit with fines totalling \u00a3222,000 for employing illegal workers.<\/p>\n
It follows a fresh wave of Home Office raids at Ocean Hand Car Wash in Strood, Fireaway Pizza in Peters Village Centre, Wouldham, and Taal Indian Kitchen in Walderslade.<\/p>\n
Ocean Hand Car Wash in Strood was found to have employed six illegal workers. Photo: Google.<\/p>\n
In total, eight people were arrested across the Medway Towns following the action between March and October 2025.<\/p>\n
The largest find was at the car wash in Knight Road where two Romanian men, one Romanian woman, a Slovakian man and woman, and an Iranian man were arrested on May 9, 2025.<\/p>\n
A civil penalty notice (CPN) was issued for \u00a3135,000 to Ocean Valeting Ltd for employing three people with no right to work in the UK on January 9 this year.<\/p>\n
In the company\u2019s most recent submission on Companies House, which only covers up to June 2025, the business ois said to employ only three people.<\/p>\n
Ocean Valeting Ltd, run by Jiri Benes, was due to submit records on June 20.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday (September 22) it was hit with a strike-off notice and given two months to comply.<\/p>\n
KentOnline approached the business for comment.<\/p>\n
Fireaway Pizza in Unit 3 of St Peters Village Centre, was visited by immigration enforcement on October 12, 2025, where one Nigerian man was arrested.<\/p>\n
Fireaway Wouldham Limited received a CPN for \u00a345,000 for employing one individual without the right to work on December 17.<\/p>\n
In March, Companies House gave two months notice of being struck off the record if accounts were not updated, however this action was suspended due to an objection.<\/p>\n
The branch is a franchise of Fireaway Pizza run by Sanjit Singh Mann and Anoop Sharma, who also ran the franchises at Pier 5, The Quays, Chatham and 19 Twydall Green, Rainham.<\/p>\n
The employing of illegal workers resulted in a total of \u00a3220,000 in fines for the businesses visited by immigration enforcement. Stock image. Picture: Suffolk Police<\/p>\n
The Chatham outlet is also listed as temporarily closed while the Rainham branch is officially dissolved on Companies House.<\/p>\n
Taal Indian Kitchen at 58 Silverweed Rd, Walderslade, were visited on March 12 last year and one Bangladeshi man was arrested by immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
The CPN for employing an individual without the right to work for \u00a340,000 was issued to Chatham Spice and Grill, run by Mrs Meherun Noor Rahman, on April 10 2025.<\/p>\n
The business went into voluntary liquidation in November, which is being managed by Finn Associates in Bradford.<\/p>\n
Finn Associates were contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
A Medway Council spokesperson said: “Medway Trading Standards and Environmental Health, along with officers from the wider Public Protection Team, work closely with our partners in HMRC, Border Force and Kent Police to ensure a fair and legal trading environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers have carried out a number of joint operations over the years and continue to pass intelligence to other agencies where officers find alleged breaches.”<\/p>\n
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Illegal working undermines honest employers, undercuts local wages, and fuels organised immigration crime. This government will not stand for it.<\/p>\n
“Since coming into power, we have increased immigration enforcement action to the highest level in British history. This has delivered a 122% rise in illegal working arrests, and a 111% rise in raids.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three businesses have been hit with fines totalling \u00a3222,000 for employing illegal workers. It follows a fresh wave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,924,59,191,188,120624,229,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-crime","tag-gb","tag-kent","tag-medway","tag-medway-council","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}